Never Enough Time

If the weekends were three days long we would want four, if five then six. No matter what, there is never enough time to complete everything that was planed.

Early Saturday me and the youngest girl "Wee" took some roosters over to my Dad's for a good old fashioned chicken killing.
Some would turn their nose up to this and some would say this is cruel but it is a way of life. I think they call it Homesteading and I don't play it, I live it.   
When I talk about this to other people it is funny, everyone has a story about when they were little at their grandparents house. The story always ends with the chicken running around with it's head cut off. Our system is a little more modern than that.
Just to let you know, everyone who does this has their own way of doing it so I am sure if you process chickens then you do it a different way. Here is our process. I may be a little vague, but it is for a reason.

Take the head off the chicken and bleed him out in the kill cone. After he is done, dip him in 140 degree water and swirl him around for about twenty seconds. If you let him sit in the water to long it will set the feathers and it will be harder to pluck him. The same if you do it to quick.

 

When the chicken is good and soaked, throw him in the plucker. My dad built this out of a 55 gallon barrel. The bottom spins throwing the chicken up and spinning him into the rubber fingers that grab all the feathers off. It only takes a few seconds to pluck a chicken this way. This thing is fantastic!

If done right the bird will come out pretty, clean and naked.
Now onto the processing table where he will be gutted and cleaned.
I didn't want to show any of the pictures of the actual process because I am sure some would have threw a fit over it. I call those people the "bleeding hearts", but if you plan to do this yourself and have any questions you can always email me.

After the chicken is processed we give him one more washing and then into the salted ice water to sit overnight. This is kinda like a weak brine then will limber the chicken up.
The next day after another washing you should be able to fold the chicken into a little ball and put him in a freezer bag and into the freezer.

All and all we processed about 20 or so chickens. The more you have helping the better. You can create kinda of an assembly line and work more efficient.

This has nothing to do with chickens, but prom came and went. This is the middle girl "Boppie" in all her glory.
Saturday morning her new dress she bought still didn't fit so it was a scramble for her to get another one. Even if I wasn't killing chickens I probably would have found something else to do than to be around the house while this was going on. Don't let her cute little smile fool ya.   

After the chickens were done I made the trip to the old farm and got all the tin I could get. I will be putting it up in the bathhouse during the week.

A freak storm blew through with 60+ mph winds Friday night creating some damage to the Mini Farm so Sunday was spent on repairs and maintenance with the oldest "BEB" manning the weedeater. 

In the end it was a good weekend, but I still could have used a couple more days to get it all done.